The Today Debate R4 - “has the uk given up on free speech?”

[Davros]

This is on at 11am today. They mention the man who burnt the Qaran in the blurb. I wonder if @glinner will get a mention. It’s the BBC so possibly not

Thanks I will hopefully catch this. The university sector certainly has given up although William Hague [new Chancellor of Oxford Uni] spoke at the Cheltenham Literature Festival yesterday to say that cancel culture would no longer be tolerated.

“Freedom of speech is not the freedom just to scream your views at somebody. It carries the obligation to listen as well. There should be debate, not just the stream of things on social media. And that means no cancel culture. That means being ready to hear things that make you feel uncomfortable.”

Maybe there is hope, although it was not reported what the reaction was....

Stella Creasy, on the panel, was not a fan of free speech. She does have her reasons to be annoyed because there are plenty of people who use their freedom of expression to send online abuse in her direction, but added to that are her authoritariain tendencies.

Overall from the programme I got the impression that we have have a problem with free speech in the UK. Creasy is not alone in progressive circles in itching to have the power to silence the public for wrongspeak.

I don’t know why people, including politicians like Creasey, apparently can’t tell the difference between opinion based on facts and gratuitous insults. That is the legal distinction in journalism (and what publishers rely on to defend themselves against claims of defamation). To say somebody is a man is a statement of fact. It may be a fact that offends that person, but it is a fact that could be proved quite easily. When people have opinions based upon that fact and others, such as crime statistics (eg for the safety and dignity of women and girls, this man should not be in a women-only space), that is still a fact-based opinion and if a publication would not be fined for printing it, a member of the public should not be punished for writing it on social media.

Sending abusive threats to an individual intending to harass and intimidate them is not even in the same ballpark. But we’ve had a decade of the police and certain politicians pretending they can’t see the difference and this is where we are – let’s try to ban people from having fact-based opinions. I guess if that’s where we’re headed, we should probably get rid of the House of Commons in that case (they’re not that good at sticking to factual arguments in there anyway). All reasoned debate is offensive.

I'm just listening - Stella Creasy is speaking.

Stella is complaining (rightly imo) about the issue of free speech being used as harassment. But in the context of abortion clinics. Will anyone mention Filia and the trans bullies? I doubt it. Nevertheless, the broad agreement that when free speech becomes harassment it’s unacceptable (not the expressing per se of the view) seems to be recognised as a problem by the panel.

I listened to this last night and was trying to recall what had caught my attention about the contribution from Stella Creasy. It was when she was asked whether a teacher could show a picture of Mohammed to pupils in a religion education class for the purposes of education. She went into circumlocutory mode and made sure that she didn't give any sort of clear answer.

She said words to the effect of “don’t prejudge my constituents” suggesting that you shouldn’t imagine they would be up in arms. I don’t know the case but from something AR said it sounds like the teacher concerned is more or less in hiding. So yes, an evasion by her.

As of 2024 he was still in hiding years after the event:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-68659435

Looking at the current state of the debate I think his fears about his personal safety are justified.

In terms of a quick review of things in the UK, this published yesterday by The Spectator is persuasive in showing that in spite of the recent court victory over the burning of the Koran, there is, in some senses, a de facto blasphemy code in the UK: https://archive.ph/brq0y

Stella Creasy had the last word. and that was that the speech of minorities needs to be listened to. She mentioned people's 'identities'. The implication being that not only should we listen to minorities, but we must accept and act on what they perceive to be their identity -otherwise we are crushing their free speech.

No concept of a clash of persepctives or rights at all, or of how things can be resolved when there is.

I don't think this needs to be anywhere near as complicated as people make out.

People should be free to express their opinions. Other people should be free to disagree.

Free speech should only be restricted by law in very limited situations, such as when it crosses the line into incitement of hatred, or harassment directed at an individual. The law should be clear about what constitutes incitement of hatred, or hate speech, so that people can't simply claim that any disagreement with their point of view amounts to hate.

Yes, there may be some consequences to exercising your right to free speech, even if it falls short of hate speech. If you say that Hitler had the right idea about some things, even if you're referring to his views on eating animals, you shouldn't be surprised if people form a negative opinion of you. However, nobody should be experiencing negative repercussions in either their personal or professional lives for stating simple facts such as "humans cannot change sex" or saying that they do not share a particular belief, for example, around gender identity.

And the right to free speech should be equal for everyone. It shouldn't be that people from certain minorities can say what they like but the majority have to shut up. We hear so often that if someone has "privilege" they should keep their opinions to themselves and let others speak. I find the suggestion that someone like JK Rowling should be quiet and listen to trans people, on the basis that they are a marginalised minority and she is a rich and powerful woman, totally appalling.

When I express my views on the clash between trans rights and women's rights, it is in my capacity as a woman. I shouldn't be prevented from saying what that means to me just because of how someone else identifies. They can identify however they like but they must accept that other people cannot be forced to agree. Particularly when the identity that they are claiming includes me, but I don't want to be force teamed with them.

We don't have a free speech problem in the UK that's rooted in the law, but in the existence of belief-based groups who are prepared to break the law in response.

The law does prohibit threats, incitement to violence, (other) public order offences, and defamation, and withholds from individuals the right to discrimination protection for their beliefs if not Grainger compliant or if manifested objectionably.

Codifying the law on public order offences and objectionableness is difficult because there's an almost infinite array of potential breaches. So it's left up to the courts to sort it out, as they did here. A pig nailed to the door of a mosque might have garnered a different response.

The problem with Islamists and TRAs is that they think that all manifestation is objectionable manifestation (T-shirt slogan opportunity?), so they react by breaking the law eg with a beheading or professional ostracism, respectively. This is not the fault of the law.